Was?

Today I thought I would go to Potsdamer Platz because I had heard that there would be free music and lots of tulips in the Sony Center this weekend. My plan was to do some homework in the morning and then take the subway up. Since the sun has finally been out, I also wanted to walk home. Well…

When I got off the subway and up onto the street, there were no tulips to be seen. There was plenty of music and green though: I had stumbled into the middle of an anti-nuclear-energy demonstration. The street was filled with people marching, on their way to the chancellery with their signs and banners and drums. And of course they were taking the same route that I had been planning to take home. I followed for a bit, sometimes in the crowd and sometimes on the edge. The diversity of the protestors struck me immediately…well…after the noise and the vibrant colors did. I followed them until they turned toward the chancellery and off Potsdamer Str.

I continued on my stroll home, stopping in at a few shops to look for incense, Easter cards, and a sundress. The sun felt so nice though that I passed my home to go wander first in a Turkish market and then through a near-by cemetery. Now I’m home drinking tea and listening to some jazz I stole from my dad over winter break. I’m a little awestruck by the sound landscape of this day. To think that over the course of four hours I went from chants and techno of the protest to the calls of the market vendors to the whispers of the cemetery. I guess I’ll look for the tulips another time.

Welcome to my home!

If I caught you up completely on the last two weeks, your head would be spinning as fast as mine. Essentially, friends flew in from the United States. Two of them were New York friends who knew each other and the other was one of my best friends from high school. Hillary and Alex arrived and we went to the Maybacher Str. Turkish market on the 11th. That put us in Kreuzberg, so we also saw the Museum of Things, which is a small museum with this statement of purpose:

“What do we collect today? We are a museum like an experimental lab for a contemporary form of social memory…concerned with clarifying the meaning and commitment and history for the present…Objects should ease people’s lives as silent servants rather than dominate them as seductive and independent consumer fetishes.”

Interesting, right? So what exactly is a museum then? Hm….

Since the girls were tired, we just made a simple dinner, went to a gallery opening, and then called it a night.

The 12^th was the beginning of my realizing that I’m very grateful to have the chance to live in this city. My poor friends who could only visit for a short time were running around trying to see everything and they just got to be too tired to notice things sometimes. We spent the day at the Winterfeld Market, the Pergamum museum, the Neues museum, the Bodes museum, and Hackeshire Market. We took part in a bread exchange, explored Alexanderplatz, and ended the night with a hipster bar and some wonderful Turkish food. Emily arrived the next day, so the New York girls went to the flea market while I went to the airport to fetch her. They then bounced around the cute cafes in Prenzlauerberg while Emily and I walked to the wall memorial, Brandenburg Gate, the chancellery, the Reichstag, and all that other interesting important stuff around Freidrichsein. We all met up again for a really good dinner at an (expensive) hipster place in Mitte (welcome to Williamsberg, Berlin!). The 14^th I had class, but we also managed to get currywurst with friends at Konnopke and walk to a watertower that was used as a prison/torture chamber during the Nazi times. Then the New Yorkers explored some galleries and Em and I walked around the Topographie of Terror discussing the nature of totalitarianism and genocide. The 15^th, one of my classes had a field trip to the Altes museum. Hillary and Alex had gone to Vienna for a few days so Emily and I spent the morning at the East Side Gallery and the Maybacher market. Then we went on my class trip, took the bus home, did some shopping at a Turkish grocery (I love my neighborhood!) and had a quiet dinner at home. That following day, I had class from 11-7.30 and was presenting two midterms. Emily went to Museum Island while I had class, and then we had a potluck with some of my Berlin friends that included rose-water oranges and a henna party. We talked long into the night, which we haven’t done in ages and is something I hadn’t realized how much I had missed.

The 17^th (Thursday if you’re following) I had German class. After class, though, we decided to ride one of the buses to the end of the line. To our great surprise, we discovered a Western shopping district and then beyond that were mansions and a lake! We explored for a bit before hopping the same bus back and taking it to its other end. There we discovered a cemetery before it was time to go to the Schoneberg Rathouse for another of my classes. The Rathouse has an exhibit up right now that is called “We Were Neighbors.” It’s about the Jews who fled from/were deported from the neighborhood under Nazi rule. There are books in which visitors can read interviews with people who survived, and around the neighborhood there are plaques which have some of the rules against the Jews written on them. Apparently, when the plaques were first being put up, people didn’t realize it was a memorial and so called the police to report anti-Semitic vandalism. I guess that’s heartening in a way. A little less heartening was the way the guide kept referring to the “Germans of Jewish faith” who were persecuted, trying to be politically correct but overlooking the fact that heritage Jews were persecuted as well.

From there we went to the Berlin Philharmonic for my architecture class. We had front row seats for 15 euro a piece! The building made me feel like I was underwater, but the design was interesting and the music was beautiful. On the way home, we picked up döner and baklava J

Hillary and Alex got home that night. They slept in the next morning as Em and I got up for a long day with my Communities class. The professor had planned a field trip from 9-6 that took us all around Berlin to look at different Holocaust memorials. It was a lot to take in, but I’m really glad we did it. We started at the train platform that the trains to the deportation camps used to leave from. Then we went to a few monuments commemorating synagogues that were used as collection points and then destroyed. We continued to the many memorials and monuments in the “center”(?) around Tiergarten (which I’ll reflect on later when my thoughts have settled) before ending at a small museum near Alexanderplatz that talks about the efforts of one man to save the Jews in his broom-making shop. Tired and a bit chilly, we met up with the other girls and went out to a beer hall together. It was relaxing to sit inside someplace warm and just catch up with everyone.

Saturday was everyone’s last day. Hillary and Alex wanted to see the East Side Gallery so they went there while I took Emily to the Soviet Memorial at Treptower Park. My Communities class had gone to the memorial and I was moved (and a little unsettled) by it so wanted to share it with her. We walked around there for a while before heading off to see a wishing tree, a petting zoo, Oranianstr., the 36 Boyz shop, good Turkish food and a strange pastry. Then I had to go to an event for my internship so Emily came with. Despina had arranged a “curator battle” in which two curators set up anonymous shows which were opened together. Visitors viewed both shows and then voted for their favorite. Again, I’ll have more to say in a week or two, but for now let it suffice to say that the event put the idea of curation to showcase art against the idea of curation as an art in itself (sometimes as the cost of the works in the show). It was fascinating. Em got pulled into being security, Michelle and I worked the ticket/voting table, and other people were in and out during the night. Hillary and Alex came by at the end and we all left together. And that was it. I took everyone to the airport the next day before going back to my apartment to clean, do homework, and try to sort out my life a bit. It was exhausting to run around so much, but I was glad to have the chance to see everyone and show them some of the city. And I realized that I could really stay here for a few years once I get the language down. With nothing to tether me in the states once my undergraduate degree is finished (because, really, it’s not like I’ll have a job offer right away or be able to afford to stay in NYC) there is no reason why I shouldn’t come here and maybe get my masters here. My resolve to learn German is a bit renewed…

When I'm at school and have internet bandwidth to spare I'll spellcheck this and add pictures! Ah the patience one develops when on limited internet plans...

Das Wetter ist schön

We are still wearing scarves and coats as spring tries to sneak in unnoticed, but increasingly I see the crocus blooming and feel the sun on my cheeks. She’s coming soon and she’ll be beautiful!

I’ve been trying to clean a lot and get a lot of midterm projects finished so that I can focus on my friends when they arrive in a few days. Despite this, I’ve somehow managed a few adventures since last writing.

Interesting insights from German class: When we practice using the phrase “You should…” my teacher drills us by having us give her advice. She says, “I have a headache.” Somehow all the American students respond with 5 different ways of saying, “When you have a headache, you should take [a pill/medicine/pills/tablets].” When she says she is tired, they tell her to drink coffee and when she says she is sad they respond with “Call your mother” or “Go to a bar” or “Quit complaining.” I could comment, but you can probably tell already why I was amused.

One of my other professors started a conversation about how upset he is that the Turkish politicians are suggesting the Turkish population in Germany teach their children Turkish, “because it is important to have a strong mother tongue.” Yikes. That conversation went on to debate language acquisition, bi-lingual education, German “migration” issues and “dead multiculturalism,” national identity based on language, state censorship, the purpose of elementary schools, double-speak as an accepted national dialogue, and (of course) racism towards immigrants. It was a pretty intense class.

Then it was the weekend again. I got a new tram pass and, unlike in Prague, the program director here wrote us official letters explaining that we’re affiliated with a German university and therefore do qualify for the student discount on transit passes. A lovely surprise.

One of the RAs organized a trip to see the Berlin fußball team play against the Frankfurt team at Olympic Stadium. Watching the sun set above the match was beautiful. Meanwhile, the fans were as fun to watch as the game and I really had a good time. Of course, the Berlin team won 3-1. Then we went out for dönor (since I hadn’t tried any before that, because of my vegetarian tendencies and such) and discussed spring break plans a little.

The next morning I went to Tempelhof airport to do culture observations for one of my classes. The pre-WWI airport was rebuilt in Nazi times and then was vital during the Berlin air-lift. It was shut down in 2008 and the city re-opened it as a park. Since they’re indecisive and broke, they didn’t landscape beyond putting up a few fences and signs that say “relic of historical use”…and the result is that there is this huge open airfield for people to use. Since my architecture class seems to be focused on public space more than anything else, I wanted to observe how people responded to a mostly open public space. It turns out that they do the same things they do elsewhere: walk, bike, talk, and play. The park does have a different feel because the space is SO huge and open, so I’m glad to have seen it. Michelle came with me so we then came home for lunch and homework before heading out again.

We went to a burlesque show in Kreuzberg. At a punk-rock bar. And we’re doing a presentation on it as one of our midterms. The assignment was to go as a group and explore a place of knowledge production. I’ll post my paper when I get it finished, because you will be surprised at how much knowledge production we witnessed in those few hours. But then we got tired so we went home to sleep.

The rest of the weekend was quiet. Angel and I explored a cool playground, but my other time was mostly spent doing homework. Yesterday was Azzuré’s birthday so we went to a vegan/vegetarian burger place called Yellow Sunshine and then went out for a drink after school. With all our work, we didn’t stay out late, but some other friends had birthdays yesterday too so we were all together. This was nice because it drew people from a few of the different cliques out of their groups and around one table. Really fun. Although one of the students is an exchange student from Mexico who put me in a reflective mood at the end of the night. He told me stories about the prejudice he faced in America, but how he loves Canada and Australia. He’s enjoying Berlin, but he misses Mexico because the culture there is friendlier. He commented that it’s harder to make friends here because people are more reserved, and that people here (like in America in some ways) work too hard to enjoy life. Mexican culture, as he explained it, prioritizes family and friends and celebrations. Beyond that, things are expected to work themselves out in time. I can see why he would be homesick.

I’ve been having a lot of these thoughtful conversations lately, about memory and time and relationships and change and conversation and socialization and the concept of home. Maybe eventually I’ll write a paper about something interesting stemming from one of these talks. Who knows?

One of the more academic conversations was at a field trip today. I went to a museum for one of my classes. To be honest though, I need to make dinner before I can focus on writing any more. Sooo this will be enough for now. Part II coming soon!